CG 20 10: Additional Insured, Owners, Lessees or Contractors, Scheduled Person or Organization

What CG 20 10 covers and where it stops

CG 20 10 amends Section II, Who Is An Insured, of the subcontractor's CGL policy to include the person or organization shown in its schedule. In the current editions the grant reaches "bodily injury", "property damage" and "personal and advertising injury" caused, in whole or in part, by the named insured's acts or omissions, or the acts or omissions of those acting on its behalf, in the performance of its ongoing operations for the additional insured at the location designated in the schedule.

Two limits are built into that sentence. The first is time. Coverage applies to ongoing operations only, and the endorsement carries exclusions that end coverage once all work on the project at that location is complete, or once the portion of work that caused the injury has been put to its intended use by anyone other than another contractor or subcontractor working on the same project. The second is fault. The additional insured is covered for liability the subcontractor caused at least in part, not for its own sole negligence.

The schedule has two columns: the name of the additional insured and the location of covered operations. Both decide tenders. A misspelled entity, a parent company in place of the contracting LLC, or a location that points to a different job can leave the general contractor or owner outside the grant even when the certificate says "ADDL INSD: Y".

• Covers: the scheduled party's liability for injury or damage the subcontractor caused, in whole or in part, during ongoing work at the scheduled location.
• Does not cover: completed operations, the scheduled party's sole negligence, or parties not named or described in the schedule.
• Attaches to: the Commercial General Liability Coverage Part.

How CG 20 10 works when you tender a claim

A tender is the letter your claims team or defense counsel sends to the subcontractor's carrier asking it to defend and indemnify you as an additional insured. The adjuster's first move is to pull the policy and read the endorsement actually attached, not the certificate. If the endorsement is CG 20 10, the adjuster checks three things: whether you are scheduled by name or by a blanket description, whether the loss happened during ongoing operations at the scheduled location, and whether the complaint alleges that the named insured's acts or omissions caused the injury at least in part.

Most construction injury suits name the general contractor and the owner first, because they control the site. Because the 07 04 and later wording asks whether the named insured caused the injury in whole or in part, a tender letter that ties the claimant's injury to the subcontractor's scope (its crew, its scaffold, its unguarded floor opening) is much stronger than one that simply attaches the certificate. Courts have not applied the phrase uniformly. New York's highest court, in Burlington Insurance Co. v. NYC Transit Authority (2017), read it to require that the named insured be a proximate cause of the injury.

If the incident happened after the subcontractor finished its work, or in an area already turned over to the owner, CG 20 10 will not respond and the carrier will deny under the completed operations exclusions. That denial is avoidable only if CG 20 37 was attached as well.

CG 20 10 edition comparison: 11 85 through 12 19

The edition date printed in the footer of the endorsement, such as 04 13 for April 2013, controls the wording. The 11 85 edition covered liability arising out of "your work" for the additional insured, which reached completed operations. The 10 93 edition cut the grant back to "your ongoing operations". The 10 01 edition carries express exclusions that end coverage once the work is completed or put to its intended use, and ISO released CG 20 37 at the same time so completed operations could be added back by a separate endorsement.

The 07 04 edition replaced "arising out of" with "caused, in whole or in part, by". ISO's stated aim was to stop coverage for the additional insured's sole negligence. The 04 13 edition added three limiters: coverage applies only to the extent permitted by law, it will not be broader than the contract requires, and the most the carrier pays for the additional insured is the lesser of the contract requirement or the available limits. The 12 19 edition keeps that structure, drops the reference to limits shown in the Declarations, and states that the endorsement shall not increase the applicable limits of insurance.

In practice, a subcontract written years ago that requires "CG 20 10 07 04 or equivalent" is satisfied by an 04 13 or 12 19 edition only as well as the subcontract states its limits. Under 04 13 and later, a contract that never names a required limit gives the carrier room to argue the additional insured is entitled to less than the subcontractor actually buys.

What to require in the subcontract

Write the requirement around the coverage, then name the form. Specify that additional insured status for ongoing operations must be provided on ISO CG 20 10 04 13 or 12 19, or a form at least as broad, and that completed operations must be provided on CG 20 37 for a stated period after final completion. State the limits the additional insureds are entitled to, because the 04 13 limits clause pays the lesser of the contract requirement or the policy limits.

List every party who must be covered: owner, general contractor, construction manager, lender, and their officers and employees. A scheduled CG 20 10 can name the owner directly. A blanket CG 20 33 will not reach an owner who has no contract with the subcontractor, because it only covers parties the named insured agreed in a written contract to add. CG 20 38 closes that gap by extending status to other parties named in that written contract.

• Form and edition: CG 20 10 04 13 or 12 19, or broader, plus CG 20 37 for completed operations.
• Named parties: legal entity names exactly as they appear in the prime contract.
• Location: the project address and project number, or a blanket description covering all locations where required by written contract.
• Limits: $1,000,000 each occurrence and $2,000,000 general aggregate, stated as the limits required for the additional insureds.
• Delivery: complete endorsement copies with the certificate before mobilization and again at every renewal.

How Pikorua Security verifies CG 20 10

Pikorua Security does not stop at the ACORD 25. When a subcontractor's broker uploads the packet through the zero-login link, the parser reads every endorsement page, finds the form number and edition stamp in each footer, and extracts the schedule. Rule AI-01 checks that a CG 20 10 or an approved carrier equivalent is present and that its edition is one your contract exhibit allows. Rule AI-03 compares the scheduled name with every entity your contract requires, so "Harborview Builders" on the schedule fails against "Harborview Builders Group, LLC" in the subcontract.

The validator also reads the grant wording. If a carrier form limits coverage to the additional insured's vicarious liability, excludes claims by the named insured's own employees, or narrows the location to a different project, Pikorua Security flags a deficiency and quotes the clause. The notice goes to the subcontractor and its retail broker together, usually about 15 seconds after upload, and the subcontractor's pay application can be held in Procore until the corrected endorsement arrives.